Look, let's be honest, September was a rather frantic month on the high street, what with the contrasting fortunes of blockbuster releases and the seasonal boost from the Chuseok holiday. Marvel Wolverine, billed as one of the standout heavyweights of the first half of the year, proved to be a bit of a damp squib with critics, though a succession of decent third-party releases like Onimusha: Way of the Sword stepped up to fill the void. Meanwhile, the hardware sector was absolutely rammed day after day, driven by gamers desperate to track down the notoriously elusive PS5 Pro.

Over in the Nintendo camp, things were surprisingly perky despite the grim news of hardware price hikes, thanks to a healthier supply of Switch 2 units and the Chuseok shopping rush giving software sales a proper leg-up. The proceedings were very much spearheaded by the shock commercial success of Fire Emblem: Three Hopes and a sudden sell-out frenzy for Elden Ring following its cheeky portable comeback. Elsewhere, a few independent shops were quick on their feet, smartly pivoting their floor space to cash in on the recent Chiikawa craze.

Naturally, over in the Sony corner, the chat was dominated by Marvel Wolverine and its somewhat lacklustre reception. Insomniac Games whipped up plenty of hype for this brand-new project, but once it landed, the general consensus was divided—critics argued that beyond the flashy action direction and combat, it felt rather hollow, bogged down by simple QTE sequences that offered zero meaningful branching choices and ultimately dragged the pacing down. That lukewarm sentiment clearly trickled down to the shops: pre-orders were admittedly through the roof, but actual over-the-counter sales post-launch proved to be rather disappointing.

Consequently, a handful of smaller retailers have already started slashing prices on Marvel Wolverine just to shift stock, leaving larger storefronts pondering whether to roll out deep discounts in time for the upcoming Black Friday sales in November. Stepping into that vacuum were September's eclectic mix of new releases, with evergreen juggernauts like EA Sports FC 27 keeping tills ringing.

The real breakout star, however, was Onimusha: Way of the Sword, which shifted enough copies to leave certain shops entirely out of stock and waiting anxiously for a restock. Store managers reported a noticeable spike in footfall compared to previous months, largely thanks to a barrage of heavyweight IP and high-profile studio releases dropping all at once, including The Blood of the Dawnwalker, Silent Hill: Townfall, and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 2nd.

On the hardware front, finding a PS5 Pro—brand new or second-hand—was practically an exercise in myth-hunting, with every retailer parroting the exact same line: stocks had completely dried up. One shop insider noted, Look, people can moan about the price increases all they want, but compared to a custom rig, it is still decent value, so everyone is gunning for a PS5 Pro. Even if you want to sell them, the supply simply isn't there, and with global shortages biting hard, it looks like this scarcity is here to stay for the long haul.

As for Nintendo, conventional wisdom suggested that once the frenzy surrounding the Nintendo Switch 2 price hikes died down, footfall would inevitably take a nosedive. In reality, though, customer numbers stubbornly refused to budge despite the heavier price tag. Part of that resilience came from gamers who rushed in just before the price hike to snap up hardware and then returned for games, alongside punters picking up titles either as holiday gifts or simply to unwind over the break.

On top of that, word got around that Fire Emblem: Three Hopes was shifting serious units despite retailing close to the magic £100 mark. Several independent shops admitted they had only ordered a modest batch, expecting it to sit gathering dust, only to be caught completely off guard by the sheer weight of demand. Industry watchers reckon the strong showing was propelled by cracking Metacritic scores and the lingering goodwill of Three Houses, a title that carved out a remarkably broad fanbase within the wider Fire Emblem lineage.

In the third-party aisles, Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition commanded serious attention, triggering sell-out signs across multiple locations. One retailer confessed, Admittedly, publishers don't usually churn out massive batches when bringing an older game to a new platform, but we genuinely did not expect Elden Ring to completely vanish from the shelves. It is a mood eerily reminiscent of the Cyberpunk 2077 launch back in the day, driven almost entirely by the sheer novelty of being able to run an absolute masterpiece on a handheld.

Meanwhile, whisper it quietly, but the buzz around The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had already started bubbling up well ahead of its official October 1 pre-order window. According to staff, punters kept wandering in after the September Nintendo Direct just to badger them about exact reservation dates and hardware allocations.

As for the Nintendo Switch 2 itself, sales have reportedly remained steady even after the price adjustment. While there were initial murmurs of anxiety that scalpers who hoarded stock at the old RRP might try to cash in on the markup, those fears proved overblown; the sudden reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2 Ocarina of Time Edition prompted a flurry of users to offload their standard consoles on the second-hand market, keeping used price inflation remarkably modest.

One rather fascinating subplot involves the independent shops. To keep the lights on, many of these smaller retailers branched out into selling merchandise, gachapon, and second-hand trinkets years ago, making them remarkably fleet-footed when shifting trends emerge. Store workers pointed out that Chiikawa—which started gaining proper traction via Netflix back in September—has seen its merchandise demand skyrocket naturally off the back of recent film and short-form video exposure.

Indeed, the Chiikawa pop-up store at Yongsan I'Park Mall had to ditch its old-school walk-in policy for a strictly reservation-based system just to keep scalpers at bay. Over in the labyrinthine alleys of the Techno Mart in Gukje Electronics Center, small independent stalls reported that new deliveries of Chiikawa gachapon are being snapped up almost as fast as staff can unpack the boxes.

All of this goes to show that modern retailers are no longer just selling games; they are rapidly adapting to multimedia crossovers to keep the cash flowing. It is a trajectory strikingly similar to the Pikmin Bloom phenomenon we saw last year, and honestly, how these shops pivot next will entirely depend on whatever random IP manages to capture the public's fickle imagination next.